Armed with AI and new media, the artist fought back and gained recognition for her artistic project

Alejandro Barrón January 11, 2023 No Comments

Armed with AI and new media, the artist fought back and gained recognition for her artistic project

Can digital technologies and new media consign gender inequality to history? On 20 January, TAEX, the NFT contemporary art platform and infrastructure solution, launches a new NFT drop by Jill Miller ‘Ariel Stinks (50 Alternative Covers to Thrash and Burn)’. The artist strives to attract attention to biased ways of treating women in the arts while sharing her experience and empowering others to speak out.

Visual artist Jill Miller publicly breaks the silence and stands up for herself and all women who were facing objectification, discrimination, and violation of rights, but does so in a humorous, witty manner.

The story started 16 years ago when Ariel Pink used a photograph of Miller on the cover of the album ‘Thrash and Burn’ without permission signing on her forehead “Ariel Stinks”. The picture of the album was spread all over the world, and an unauthorised photo of Miller was seen by millions. Despite a clear violation of her rights, Miller did not seek compensation or apologies from Pink through the legal system. Neither music industry ethics and policies nor non-governmental organisations flagged this issue.

Instead of giving up, Miller conceptualised an artistic response to Thrash and Burn by creating 50 alternative album covers that are editioned in multiple formats: a collection of NFTs and a softcover book which is available for presale on her website. Created in collaboration with artificial intelligence, it brings criticism of the objectification of women and enables the artist to gain back control over her likeness. ‘Ariel Stinks (50 Alternative Covers to Thrash and Burn)’ is indeed a continuation of the ‘Ariel Stinks’ line, which was started by the musician. In these fifty humorous works, Pink is associated with various smelly objects: breeding bacteria, a pet skunk and a public bathroom. Miller creates a series of “alternative careers” for the musician by envisioning him as a Spin Instructor, a TSA Agent, and a Walmart worker. Often in the images, Ariel’s face is bloated and disfigured, which is a powerful criticism of the dehumanisation of women by the capitalistic entertainment industry that has been using women’s images in promotion campaigns for many decades, not always legally, as a disposable and expendable resource.

Launched as NFTs, the artworks not only address the biases of the traditional art world and the music industry but also emphasise the current state of the blockchain world that became a safe haven for radical far-right cisgender males. Ariel Pink, an active participant in the January 6 United States Capitol attack – thus the day of the drop – would be a role model for a typical representative of the alt-right blockchain community members. The work by Jill Miller can be a step in raising the issue of gender imbalance in the technical world at large and its blockchain subsection in particular and serve as a much-needed action in eradicating this problem.

This is not the first work of Jill Miller, where she raises the issue of women’s rights. She often collaborates with individuals and local communities in the form of public interventions, workshops, and participatory community projects. She describes humour as “the greatest social lubricant” for opening up meaningful conversations about difficult subjects. In her past works, she lived in the remote wilderness in search of a sasquatch (Waiting for Bigfoot), assisted mothers who were harassed for breastfeeding in public (The Milk Truck), and organised teenage girls who were closing the gender gap by learning to edit Wikipedia (WOW! Editing Group).